Alt Ending for True Detective
by charles.b.murphy.3
Summary: Alternate ending for True Detective. (Written before ending was shown on HBO).


Last Synopsis (Fan Fiction) True Detective

By CB Murphy

At the end of the last episode, Rust and Marty have taken Sheriff Geraci captive. The two black officers (Maynard and Thomas) have come up the Man With Scars who is cutting grass. (Pastor) Tuttle has been dead two years and the two cops think Rust went nuts and killed him. Marty doesn't believe that once he sees Rust's storage locker/hideout the contents of which they have now moved to Marty's underused office.

[Off camera, Sheriff Geraci was questioned by them and let go under the threat that if he messes with their investigation they will reveal that he has obstructed justice in the child disappearance cases years ago. Also off camera, Geraci contacts "the cult" (run by Scar Man) and alerts them to this unofficial inquiry by Rust and Marty that needs to be stopped.]

The Last Episode starts with Marty's ex-wife Maggie coming to Marty that their daughter Maisie (how old would she be? Would have to be a teenager now?) is missing. Marty questions her if anyone strange has been around them. Maggie says a strange man "with facial scars" came around to ask if they needed lawn care, but she couldn't think of anyone else.

Marty freaks out and rushes out. [Note: I'm not sure how Marty would have a lead on where to go to find this man. Perhaps the black cops mentioned him since they saw him. Or perhaps Rust has honed in on a possible location and Marty runs with that.] As viewers, we trust that he knows where to go.

[Note: This will be a deserted church/meth lab sort of location in the bayou.]

Maggie gets scared when she sees Marty run off crazed. She goes to Rust's place. She tells him what happened and Rust gets freaked too. Rust tells her to go to the black cops and tell them.

We see a scene of Rust preparing to go into the bayou. [Reminiscent of "Apocalypse Now" prep scene.. A "preparing for battle" scene.] Rust dresses in camo, paints his face, attaches all kinds of weaponry to himself and takes (his? Or stolen?) an airboat (one with big fan) out onto the bayou at night.

The next scene is the cult. It's crazy. A bunch of guys in animal masks, a big bonfire. Marty and Maisie are stripped nearly naked, painted with occult signs and have deer antlers applied to their heads. A closeup on their faces makes it look like they are on some kind of hallucinogenic drug, though Marty looks terrified and furious while Maisie is crying.

Cut to the black cops, getting weapons, calling for backup. The break into Marty's office, search Rust's "desk" and find the map to the cult headquarters. (The assumption is that Marty has been duped by Rust. They're after Rust, not Marty.)

Back to cult scene. Preparations are advancing toward a murder of Marty and a rape/murder of Maisie. In Marty's POV we see Rust sneaking around in the bushes. Rust is making signs but Marty can't do anything but struggle in his bondage.

Marty's bonds are cut by Rust secretly just before Rust breaks into the open and starts shooting the cult members with an assault rifle. As they scramble for weapons, Rust rescues Maisie. Marty is too drugged to do much but try to avoid being shot. He sees Rust make off into the swamp with Maisie.

More shots ring out as Maynard and Thomas arrive with backup. There is an extended gunfight, Marty comes around and steals off into the swamp. At this point the viewer is unclear if Marty, too, is worried about Maisie being in Rust's care. Or maybe he just wants to make sure she's safe. But it has a feeling a chase as there are a few culties between Rust and Marty. Marty manages to shoot them. But he's still after Rust and Maisie.

Marty comes onto a strange scene full of those wood sculptures associated with the cult. His first impression is that this is Rust's "place in the swamp" and actually it is. But Rust has created this grotto to try to "get into the mindset" of the cult not to be "in" the cult. But to the outsider it looks like his own cult place.

Marty yells as Rust to let Maisie "go." Rust's eyes go wide in disbelief that Marty could thing Rust had anything other than the noblest intentions towards Maisie. Rust looks around and "gets it" what this place might look like to Marty and tries to explain. "No, no, man, you have it all wrong!"

Marty yells, "Just let her go, Rust!"

Rust isn't holding Maisie, who is confused and crying and jumps into the swamp to go to her father.

Just then Maynard and Thomas arrive and shoot Rust (perhaps it looks like he's going for a gun). Maisie gets to Marty, he realizes what's happening and yells at the cops not to shoot any more. He wades into the swamp and arrives at Rust who is dying.

Rust looks up at the great tree covered with moss and the wood sculptures all about and he kicks into one of his philosophical "rants" about mankind and God and crawling out of the swamp and demon-gods from the past sticking around…"

And Marty, now holding him, while cops arrive, says very gently, "Shut the fuck up, Rust."

Rust looks at him, smiles and dies.


End file.
